1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system for monitoring the position of a person, animal, vehicle, or other mobile object. More particularly, the invention utilizes a low power remote tracking device with a tone-only paging receiver, wireless transceiver, and global positioning system (GPS) unit, where the system responds to remotely initiated activation signals by powering-up and transmitting data stating the remote tracking device""s position.
2. Description of the Related Art
Nearly one third of all pet dogs and pet cats become lost from their owners at some point in their lives. In spite of great effort expended in searching, posting rewards, distributing handbills, and the like, less than 20 percent of dogs are recovered, and less than 3 percent of cats. Searching for lost pets consumes pet owners"" time, and in many cases, their emotions as well. And, when a pet is lost permanently, its owner incurs further costs in grief and, in some cases, new pet acquisition.
Obviously, pets are unable to reliably operate traditional remote communication devices such as cell phones, pagers, and the like. Initially, there would seem to be some promise for self-operated locating devices such as homing beacons and transmitters that communicate with a base station or other central facility. Unfortunately, most homing beacons and transmitters consume excessive battery power. And, although some selectively activated locating devices exist, they still consume significant electrical power. Therefore, they are limited in their operational time. When a battery dies in such an application, the remote transmitter ceases to function. This likely results in loss of the pet, which is the precise occurrence of which these systems seek to avoid. Therefore, the pet owner must frequently attend to the inconvenient and expensive task of battery replacement.
In addition to power consumption, another issue with known tracking systems is the cost of conducting communications between remote tracking devices and a base station. A number of approaches, for example, use wireless telecommunications services such as cellular telephones or two-way pagers. With these approaches, costs are incurred to subscribe to such communications services, and additional costs are typically incurred to utilize such services. Reduction of such costs poses a continual challenge to designing a practical pet tracking system.
Known products, then, are not always completely adequate for use in tracking pets and other mobile items due to these and other certain unsolved problems.
Broadly, the present invention concerns a system for monitoring the position of a person, animal, vehicle, or other mobile object. The invention utilizes a low power remote tracking device (also called a xe2x80x9cmobile object position reporting devicexe2x80x9d) with a one-way paging receiver, cellular or other wireless transceiver, and location-sensing device exemplified by a GPS unit. When the paging receiver receives a remotely initiated activation signal, power is selectively applied to the GPS unit and wireless transceiver. After the GPS unit determines the tracking device""s position, the wireless transceiver contacts a designated reporting site with data stating the remote tracking device""s position. If desired, additional position reports may be repeatedly transmitted, either on a predetermined schedule or as remotely requested.
The invention is especially beneficial for tracking pets collared with such tracking devices, in which case a central tracking coordination facility broadcasts the necessary activation signal via a selected one-way paging network whenever a customer loses his/her pet. Nonetheless, the invention may also be applied to the task of monitoring the position of children, prisoners, hospital patients, people with reduced mental facility, vehicles, or other mobile objects.
The invention affords its users with a number of distinct advantages. Unlike other projects in this area, the unique application of a receive-only paging unit (low power consumption) to selectively activate the wireless transceiver (high power consumption) and GPS unit when a tracking request arrives enables the tracking devices to run on battery power for many months. Use of a tone-only pager reduces the tracking device""s equipment costs and wireless service costs without affecting its utility. Also, where the wireless transmitter is implemented by a cellular or PCS telephone unit, subscriber service costs for the cellular transceiver are minimized by using a nonconforming, transmit-only mobile identification number (MIN). This minimizes the costs of operating this tracking system. And, because non-confirming MINs are not controlled, new telephone numbers may be easily obtained for tracking devices as they are purchased by customers and eventually activated. Although the cellular operator may charge higher per-minute rates for these outgoing calls (compared to standard cellular calls), these monthly service costs are significantly reduced. Namely, such calls are only required if the mobile object is lost, which occurs rarely. Thus, wireless telephone costs for the tracking system of this invention are low. The invention also provides a number of other advantages and benefits, which should be apparent from the following description of the invention.